Tecsun R9700DX 12-Band Dual Conversion AM/FM Shortwave Radio

I’ve been into radio since my teenage years and for nearly two decades I’ve been an amateur radio operator. I feel my experience and background will make my review valid. For under $100, you WILL NOT find a better performing shortwave radio. It just isn’t going to happen. The audio clarity from the good sized speaker is superb for a radio in this price range. While the tuning is analog and not fancy digital, I prefer analog tuning because I’m able to “slide” through the band easily without the tuning steps associated with digital. The display does light up for use in the dark. You get access to all of the major shortwave bands, which will provide hours of entertainment. There are some gaps in frequency coverage between the bands, but nothing that would warrant deducting a star. It's just worth mentioning and to most users, isn't a big deal. Now on a more technical note, the receiver in this is dual conversion. For simplicity sake, this means there are “two” stages to the IF circuit which allows the user to better finely tune in stations and increases rejection from interference. A feature you normally only find in really high end models. If you’re on the fence, let me knock you off of it. Buy this radio. You will not be disappointed at all. Included is a nice little case/cover, a long-wire antenna, and AC adapter.

I have had this radio for 3 years now. I have been an avid SW listener for going on 30 yrs. I am not a ham but I was a MURS and Hurricane NET operator in the military so I know a little about HF. I am not going to compare this to a ICOM or Drake ham rig. I will review it on its merit for what is is compared to other consumer grade receivers. I own or have owned Sangean 803A, 818, Grundig S750, S350, DEGEN 1102, 1103, WRX911. First off If you want to listen to utility signals skip this because its SW segments only cover the SW broadcast bands with exception of 120, 90 and 11 meter bands. That being said it covers most of them. This is hands down in my opinion one of the best portable SW travel radios made. This is the reason I purchased it. It controls are extremely simple. It as nice dial that lights up the dial. It is auto shut-off after 20 seconds but has a switch that bypasses that and allows you to leave it on constantly. its has a music news tone switch and an ext ant jack nd a DX local switch which is an attenuator in the local position. This pads the whip as well as the ext ant attached. It has a nice speaker that kinda raises your eyebrows when you 1st hear it because it lacks the tinny, tiring sound most portable this size have. It has a fuller, richer sound. The radio takes 4 AA batteries and they last what seems like 4-ever due to the miserly analog circuitry of this radio. Volume is a slide switch and tuning is a thumb wheel on the right hanf side of the radio. Supposedly you can charge the batteries in the radio and it slow charges the 4 Nmih batteries that come with it even though there are no details in the manual or the box on how it does it. I take the radio with me only when I travel with the exceptions when I get it out to compare to other radios. The FM on this radio is excellent and the stereo thru the headphones is superb, especially when you use a better grade of music headphones. The selectivity and sensitivity on FM are outstanding. The AM portion of this radio is where the people will find it lacking or so it seems. Its AM selectivity is good but sensitivity is mediocre. This not a lost cause though because like a lot of new portable SW radios that don't have a lot of room for a large proper AM antenna you can place an AN100, 200 MW loop antenna near this and the AM band comes alive with signals seeming to leap from the noise floor. I have never a portable SW receiver AM section benefit from this type of AM loop antenna as much as the R9700DX. While packing an AN200 along with isn't in the travel recipe if you have this on your office,study desk or kitchen table with an AN200 loop antenna this is an AM performer. SW selectivity and sensitivity are excellent. It hears signals off the whip that any of my other portables her as long as the R9700DX. The provided long wire should be able to bring in a signal if enough of it is there to bring in. If prefer to use the long wire because it lowers the noise floor so much. On the stronger signals I just use it in the LOCAL position and the pad tames any overload. A roll up long wire is the perfect travel companion. I have a long wire and a multi band long wire in the attic that I run my S750 and 803A on and with the DX/LOCAL switch in local postion this radio pulls any signal pulls any signal the others can as long as it is on the tuning dial with no overload and a super low noise floor. This radio has none of the synthesizer noise that a PLL radio has even though it is dual conversion. I have read reviews on this radio where people try to force the tuning wheel to tune a signal. Don't do this! This will break it. I it can't be tuned it can't be tuned. This radio dial is relative in that with the AC power adapter, Alkaline batteries or Re-chargeables plugged into its analog circuitry the dial will tune in slightly different positions per the the different DC levels fed to its analog circuitry. 1.5VDC AA alkalines vs. 1.2VDC Nimh AA's. With that in mind the radio radio will require about 10-15 minutes for the internals to stabilize but will require a slight nudge from time to time to peak your tuning, not nowhere near the amount an S350 requires. If you are as old as I am and remember the audio that came from the old higher end stereo receivers this radios audio has the same purer sound to it that the pre digitally processed audio use to have. My ears can tell the difference. This radio (or some of the other SW portables) connected to a decent attic antenna and the headphone/line audio piped thru a decent set of powered bookshelf or computer speakers you have a very decent analog SW BCB listening station that will make an S350 green with envy. An AN200 MW antenna completes it. This is a Great BCB radio and hats-off to the engineers who designed it. This is one of the best travel radios made for someone that has no need to receive utility signals. It also has a very, very nice travel case. It's analog tuning is perfect for band scanning in a new area you may be visiting or over staying over-night in. I highly recommend this radio. I am not going to take away from it due to no SSB and the things it doesn't do. You buy it for what is supposed to do and that it does extremely well. This radio is a keeper. If Tecsun reads these reviews it would be nice to see an 803A size radio, analog tuner and dial with fine tuning with S350 speaker audio depth/quality with 120/90 and 11 meters using this technology would be a winner. I don't think SW is going to die and see it as resurgant into the future. A portatop radio with out the hissy digital signal processing and grate audio would be nice. Hopefully they have the engineers who designed this are coraborating on other projects.

So after receiving 3 separate radios and finally getting one that works properly here's my take. First off I love the style and construction of the radio. If you like "old school new tech" then this is definitely satisfying. The FM and MW/AM band is very sensitive and the DX function works quite well picking up a lot of faint stations. I look forward to trying out the MW with a loop antenna. I haven't had much luck picking up many SW stations but it's probably due to unfair weather lately. Sound quality I would say is good, stereo and mono sound switch is drastic between the two and preferences may vary. Build quality feels good, especially the tuning dial, nice resistance for fine tuning without worry of skipping past those faint signals and holds the station well. Also the tuning dial is quite accurate on my particular radio. Very nice getting the AC adapter and FM/SW wire antenna included, at least a $20 value. Case is also pretty nice, a stiff seemingly well made canvas type material that fits nice and tight over the radio. Overall I'm very satisfied with the radio and look forward to further testing. The bad is the fact that it took me 2 replacements to find one I was satisfied with. On one radio, the tuning dial was WAY off. If I tried tuning to 92.3FM for example, it would read 95-96FM. The other radio had a loud popping noise when turning the backlight on, loose tuning dial, scuffs on the station backplate, very loose band selector switch etc... I'm sure most people would be fine with some of these nitpicky things, but for a $50+ radio I expected a little better. As long as you get a good functioning radio and don't expect perfection I would recommend this radio for the styling, sound quality and sensitivity.

Tired of the digital world, then cross back to the familiar analog tuner. The R9700DX does not disappoint, and has become one of my favorite analog radios. My video review of this radio is on youtube. Features I like about this radio: * Speaker audio is really good. * FM reception is solid. * AM reception is great. * SW reception is decent. * FM/SW External Antenna Jack. * FM Stereo! * Large Tuning Display. * Dial light, looks really good in the dark. * Simple design and layout. * Build quality is good. * Comes with AC adapter that charges your NiMH batteries. * Headphone listening is a nice experience. * Tuning wheel is smooth and a joy to use. * Vertical stand. Features that could be added or improved on: * How about an analog clock to go with the analog radio? That would be sweet! * Better tone control, maybe a separate wheel. The switch doesn't seem to make a huge difference. * Volume control as a wheel, not a slider. Seems a bit dated. * A strap that connects both sides of the radio would be stronger to carry it by. Its a pretty heavy radio and the included strap doesn't seem quite that robust. Overall, If your into wanting a little larger portable shortwave radio, this one is in a class of it's own. Therefor it gets a solid buy from me. The Reception of this receiver is amazing and the speaker quality will surprise you. This could easily be your everyday radio.

I was reding a lot of reviews about some radio, and someone put 1 or 2 stars , because there was no reception or any signal for SW. or MW. especially if there are in urban area. ANTENNA, ANTENNA ,ANTENNA , I can buy the most sophisticated expensive high tec. radios in the world , but without proper antenna, I will get nothing in SW.just insulated speaker wire with alligator clip ,attached to the radio antenna , I was able to get a lot of stations , with clear voice and static free. for TECSUN R9012 Radio is portable multiband radio receiver, and TECSUN R9700DX 12-Band Dual Conversion AM/FM Shortwave Radio , I love it. I am a TECSUN fan for long time, For the size of it and the price, well done. Compare it to my old National Panasonic and Toshiba analog radios from the 90’s MW local tuning outdoor is nice and most of the channels very clear FM inside my warehouse with metal roof and statics and electrical equipment still working perfect Without extending the antenna, so far so good very compact and portable .Now let us get the real challenge. SW well so far by 1 pm afternoon with sunny day in south Florida , still sound very good outdoor with extended antenna still working, I WAS ABLE TO PICK UP A LOT OF CHANNELS: SW8 - 19 m BAND SW7 - 22 m BAND SPANISH RADIO FROM SOUTH AMERICA SW6 - 25 m BAND USA BORADCATING FROM NORTH AMERICA. This is the best band to hear daytime, for evening and night, best is with the lower frequencies 31 m 41 m and 49m Now the real test is with my broom stick homemade ¼ wave and ½ wave antenna , evening or sunset. There is no external antenna input with R9012 radio.so my best choice is with alligator clip attached to the antenna. It’s working very well. R9700DX has external antenna input , so I used my SANGEAN ANT 60 portable antenna, I picked stations from Africa and south America in Arabic ,English, and Spanish , voice of China ,Radio Romania, I am very happy with it.

My main intention of purchasing the R9700DX was to possibly replace an aging Sony SW-20 that I've owned for nearly 30 years. As with the R9700DX, the Sony is also dual conversion analog and the R9700DX is about the only choice in this day and age that offers dual conversion with analog tuning. There are distinct advantages of having these features over digital units, primarily low noise floors and better dynamic range due to little or no internally generated noise from flashy digital read-outs or CPU chips. Battery consumption is also very low not having to power many components other than the radio function itself. The SW-20 excels at both of these in addition to its superior sensitivity and selectivity on MW, SW and FM using just the tiny telescopic whip and internal ferrite bar. Truly a marvel of miniaturization and Japanese engineering. The R9700DX is nearly 3 times the size of the SW-20 and shares the same case and dimensions of the Tecsun PL-600. I knew this at the outset and the paperback book size of the R9700DX is still plenty small and portable enough. Construction is high quality and solid. Tuning is smooth from the top to the bottom of the dial with no backlash but the dial calibration is grossly inaccurate compared to the SW-20. The supplied case is very durable. Dial lighting, while primarily a novelty, is superb and brings back memories of tuning tube radios from years ago. The R9700DX covers considerably more of the SW spectrum that was omitted on the SW-20, most notably the 75, 60 and 22 meter bands. Sensitivity on SW is above average and using anything more than the telescopic whip tends to overload the R9700DX including the supplied longwire. Strong signals bleed up and down frequencies on SW, the SW-20 suffers from this as well but not nearly as much as the R9700DX. Being dual conversion selectivity is very good but the tuning slopes are much narrower on the R9700DX which can make zeroing in on a station tricky sometimes. FM sensitivity is great, on par with the Tecsun PL-380 with much fuller audio fidelity from the internal speaker. Although not as warm sounding as the PL-600, the R9700DX falls somewhere between it and the PL-380. Certainly not unpleasant for both music and voice. So why the 3 star rating? MW sensitivity is well below average. Only the strongest of stations can be received during daylight hours and in the evening/night when the band is open the R9700DX needs the help of a passive loop to grab decent signals of powerhouse broadcasters that can be picked up on much lesser and inferior radios like the Sony ICF-S10MK2. It's really disappointing, the selectivity is there but having to use an external loop to bring the R9700DX up to the level of a $12 pocket portable in terms of sensitivity on MW is just unacceptable. And I need to add that MW performance was the primary criteria of purchasing this radio, SW second, FM dead last. With all the other offerings available the R9700DX is still a strong contender among them if your interests only include SW and FM. I challenge you to find another analog multi-band dual conversion receiver without having to buy something used that's 20+ years old or at a hamfest...because you won't. For this the R9700DX is the only game in town that I'm aware of. I really had high hopes for the R9700DX giving the SW-20 a run for its money, but it falls incredibly short in MW performance when it obviously shouldn't.

I was interested in an entry level device to explore short-wave radio, and based on the reviews, this seemed like a good option. However, I could only pick up maybe 4-5 stations across the 10 different bands, and this was with the extra antenna fully expanded. A few channels in Spanish, and a few with Christian fundamentalist religious content. Otherwise, static ruled the airwaves. Maybe if I lived in a rural area, this would work better. AM signal was weaker than I expected. I pick up more AM in my car than on this radio. FM signal was strong and I was able to get several stations I would normally not get, but were stations I would normally not listen to either. The radio looked good and seemed well made, but ultimately was not much better than the smaller transistor radio I had when I was a kid.

This is the radio I've been waiting for. No DSP chip, pure analog, which means long battery life. Reminds me of the summers we would spend with our grandparents in the west Texas desert years ago. There was an old radio in the room all the boys slept in. After sundown while everyone else was either outside or doing whatever, I would turn that radio on. I remember hearing Amos and Andy, and Captain of The Clouds. I distinctly remember hearing someone say "This is WGN, Chicago". That's what got me into radio. I've had it for a few days now and couldn't be happier I bought it. I love tuning through the dial searching for those far away stations with my headphones on. The sound is excellent, though the band switch is a little touchy. The tuning dial is also a bit stiff, but will probably loosen up over time. The shortwave covers almost all the bands, and I've picked some interesting broadcasts from overseas. My favorite thing is the orange light for the dial. While I'm DXing or just listening, the softness of the light reminds me of that old radio at the grandparents. It doesn't blast you in the eyes like those glaring white LEDs on other radios. I also got a wire book display stand from amazon to prop it up on. I've had other radios with the fold out stand on the back that eventually became loose. The slate gray color is cool too. This may well become my go to radio. I have others that are very good, like the Retekess TR618 which I use for podcast listening. But for DXing, this is the one.

El único defecto que le encuentro es el movimiento del disco para sintonizar, está demasiado apretado. Por ser de metal y de filos duros, al cabo de un rato lastima a los dedos. Por lo demás es un aparato excelente, con muy buena sensibilidad, buen sonido, gran resolución en el dial. He podido escuchar estaciones de varias partes del mundo, con SW. Usando AM logré captar una estación de San Francisco, desde Ensenada, unos 950 Km, de manera clara y fuerte.

This is probably one of the best analog radios available today. Sensitivity and overall functionality is great. The only complaint I have is that the tuning wheel is a pretty stiff. If your use case is to tune to a station and then listen to it, it is all good, but if your use case is to constantly scan and tune to different stations, then you may find the stiffness of the tuning button pretty challenging. Personally, I am happy with my purchase and find the sound quality and selectivity of this radio to be excellent. It is a keeper.

Es bueno que incluya su cargador de pared, solo es importante considerar que el cargador es bueno para uso de FM... para AM y SW es mejor usar baterías ya que el cargador introduce ruido al AM y SW. La recepción en general es muy buena y el sonido es potente para tener solo una bocina, muy recomendado si se quiere un radio sencillo y de buena calidad

Good reception on all bands with decent muting of interference between stations. A good basic radio. However I returned mine because I have arthritis in my fingers and found the tuning dial very difficult to operate (overly stiff). I ordered a Tecsun PL-880 instead (it hasn't arrived yet as of this writing).

I bought this because it had an analog dial as opposed to a digital one. I suppose it reminded me of radios I owned in the past. It is fine on FM, decent on AM and shortwave. It is not a "serious" radio, just something for casual listening. It comes with a nice case, a wire antenna, a charger and earphones. It is a small radio and seems to run for a good long time on batteries. On the back of the radio is a fold out stand so it can be used inclined for easier viewing; on the bottom is a pull out stand to make it more stable in the upright position. The band coverage is interesting. On AM it does not cover the 1610-1700 kHz portion of the band that was added in the 1990s. On shortwave the radio provides 10 bands, each 550 kHz wide. This means that some frequencies are not available. This includes some amateur radio bands but since most amateur radio transmissions are single side band, digital or morse code this is not really relevant - on shortwave this radio only receives AM signals. While not as accurate as a digital display the tuning display is reasonably good, the SW dials are marked in 10 kHz increments. There is a light for the display which can be on continuously or briefly. Unfortunately the only way of telling which SW band is in use is by looking at the tiny dots above the band selector. These are not lit up by the light and there is no other indication of which band has been selected. Not an easy radio to use in a dark room. Overall an attractive and compact unit with reasonable performance at a reasonable cost.